CMOS oscillator said to beat quartz

PORTLAND, Ore.— Integrated Device Technology Inc. has introduced what it claims is the world's most accurate all-silicon CMOS oscillator with the industry's highest frequency accuracy, measured in parts per million (ppm).

Synchronizing high-speed digital circuitry needs rock-solid time bases, which usually means quartz-crystal based oscillators. CMOS oscillator makers, however, claim to be pioneering a new breed of digital time bases that are faster than quartz crystals yet smaller and lower power than MEMS.

"We are launching a 100 ppm all-CMOS oscillator that makes us competitive with crystal oscillators," said Michael McCorquodale, founder of Mobius Microsystems which invented the all-CMOS oscillator technology acquired by IDT (San Jose, Calif.) earlier this year. At IDT, McCorquodale is general manager of the Silicon Frequency Control (SFC) business. "We have already shipped 3.2 million units just in the last quarter."

Early reports from OEMS, according to IDT, claim that their digital circuits are achieving superior bit-error rates with its IDT3C02 despite its lower cost over quartz crystals and tiny 5-by-3.2-by-0.9 millimeter size (with an even smaller footprint--2.5-by-2-by-0.9 millimeter—planned for its 50 ppm part due out in 2011).

"We have put the right compensation circuitry on our all-silicon CMOS oscillator to generate very high frequencies with good accuracy," said Tunc Cenger, senior manager of product marketing at IDT. "And our added value is that you can integrate inside the package which you can't do with quartz."

IDT delivers its all-silicon CMOS oscillators on wafers before dicing, so that its customers can stack the IDT3C02 on top of their application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) in a multi-chip package, or for ultra-price-sensitive applications, like flash drives, OEMs can affix the IDT die to a chip-on-board (CoB).

IDT has 35 issued and pending patents on its unique compensation circuitry and die encapsulation that hermetically seals its CMOS oscillator to protect it from stray electrical fields and changes in the environment, such as humidity, that had prevented previous designs from achieving 100 ppm frequency accuracy and less than 457 femtosecond phase jitter.

The frequency-trimmed, temperature-compensated, environmentally-stabilized IDT3C02 achieves -140dBc/Hz phase noise by beginning with a 3GHz self-referenced LC oscillator that it divides down to user-programmable range of from 4-to-133MHz. By using no power-consuming phases locked loop (PLL), the the IDT3C02 consumes less than a quarter of the power required by quartz, MEMS and other all-CMOS oscillators--just two milliamps active and 200 nanoamps in stand-by with 100 microsecond start-up--plus can run at any supply voltage from 1.8-to-3.3 volts. The no-moving-parts design, compared to quartz or MEMS, also leads IDT to claim superior shock and vibration resistance for its all-silicon CMOS approach.

IDT mixed signal die for its all-silicon CMOS oscillator houses a large inductor (top) surrounded by its compensation circuitry.

Aging? What about the Aging? Will they spec 1 year and add that in the 100 PPM spec? What does it do 3 to 5 years down the road.
Short Term Stability?
457 femtosecond phase jitter. Yes but defined over what range? The range where the LC oscillator is optimum?
Achieves -140dBc/Hz phase noise; yes but at what offset frequency?
Yes but I have 1 more question to ask; if this is such a great technology then what happened to Mobius Microsystems? Why was it acquired by IDT earlier this year.

Yes, I've been following these guys since they published their work at the ISSCC 2007:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4077168
when they were still Mobius Microsystems.
If I remember correct, the paper mentions using an elaborate digital calibration with the
aid of an external reference clock to achieve sub-100ppm setting accuracy.

I agree with you. The title could be over-optimistic for the IDT3C02 CMOS oscillator. But this "all-silicon" oscillator could certainly beat the 100 ppm quartz crystal oscillators available in the market...isn't it?

The length change of silicon is 2ppm/Kelvin
Length change of Aluminium is 23ppm/K
Copper has 16ppm/K
Lets assume that the silicon length change overrides the length change of the metal (whatever is used) , a temperature change of 50 Kelvin causes an inductance change of 100ppm
Same for the capacitors, I guess.
I have no idea how they trim the circuit to compensate the +/-20% process spread of the capacitors. Laser trimming? I see no space for a fractional PLL.

I see IDT claim 73c/10K, which is ok, but not much below even Digikey Crystal Osc prices.
There are also 1mA Crystal Oscillators, so their claims of lower power is more 'average', rather than comparing leading edge, with leading edge.
I can see it has a place, replacing the very bottom spec'd crystals, but Ceramic resonators are more threatened here.
The wide supply range is impressive.
Missing from their data sheet, is the Base Freq, I see mentioned above as 3GHz.
Also missing is any breakout of the 100ppm components : no dF/dT, dF/dV, etc

Can anyone explain how this technology works? Any grad student can build LC oscillator that oscillates at hundres of MHz or few GHz (I know first hand, I had a few students who built that)...by neither L or C are predictable so you will get a value of oscillation frequency which will be 20% off or so...you can tune that in with C (using varactor) or less likely with L (using some switches to connect more L if needed)...but how do you maintain that tuning over life of the product, temp changes, VVD variations etc...any hint is appreciated...Kris